You’re Not That Great by Elan Gale

(But Neither is Anyone Else)

There are some advance reader copies (ARCs) that, when sitting in a pile of hundreds of other ARCs on our staff lunch table at work, just call out to me. There are fewer that actually make it to my desk, fewer still that make it home with me, and fewer still that I actually read. For working at a bookstore and getting access to literally hundreds of ARCs, I might only read 3 each year. But I’d been in the market for an actually helpful “self-help” book, and the nonstandard approach of You’re Not That Great seemed to demand that I read it.

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Synopsis

The self-help industry tells you that if you’re positive, if you put your best foot forward, and if you just believe in yourself, you will find happiness. Let’s be real: You can read all the inspirational quotes you want. You can spend your days giving yourself affirmations in your heart-shaped mirror and trying to learn to love yourself. You can say your mantra over and over again while sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in a Whole Food parking lot. But the truth is, you’re not a “badass” and you still don’t have the life you want. That’s where this book comes in. This book teaches you how to stop trying to FEEL BETTER, and urges you to BE BETTER. It will help you harness all the negativity in the world and use it to improve your life. Positive thinking is for assholes. Negative thinking is for winners.

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Review

Me prior to reading this book : I’m a millennial and I’m special unicorn. Me after reading this book : I might be a millennial and special unicorn, but I’m not really a great person. And being a great person is more important that being a special millennial unicorn.

The last time a read a self-help book (The Fangirl Life), I hated myself more and more after each chapter. In reading You’re Not That Great, a certain amount of self-loathing is a prerequisite. One must accept that they’re not that great in order to become great. Now, I knew absolutely nothing about Elan Gale, I didn’t know he was a producer of The Bachelor (which, oddly enough, I’ve never seen), and I purposefully did not look up any information about him until I was done reading. Primarily because I wanted to believe he is a credible authority on his subject matter.

Now, he is not a psychologist, which is probably why our publisher rep at the store suggested that we shelve this book in humor, but as a real life person, with real life experience (not just the experience of patients and extensive study), I find him to be uniquely qualified to write the anti-self-help self-help book.

You’re Not That Great is, yes, very humorous, but it is also incredibly helpful. For centuries, millennia even, court fools were the only ones allowed to make fun of their lord/king. And in the poking fun, was also at least a morsel of truth. It’s like when someone tells you they have good news and bad news and ask which you’d like to hear first. I’m sure 9 out of 10 people will say the bad news first, because then they get to cheer up, and maybe even laugh a little, when they hear the good news.

It is an age old practice because it is an effective one, one that Elan Gale uses to his great advantage to drive home the purpose of his book, or what I believe should be the second subtitle for the book, “But You Can Be Better.”

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

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